Researchers who work with stem cells have ambitious goals. Some want to cure cancer or treat heart disease. Others want to grow the tissues and organs that patients need for transplants. Some groups are even working to develop ...

Researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have, for the first time, coaxed human stem cells to become sensory interneurons—the cells that give us our sense of ...

One of the most puzzling questions in breast cancer research is why some tumors stay put, while rogue cells from others break free and spread to surrounding tissues, the first step toward creating a more lethal disease. Although ...

In many ways, stem cells are the divas of the biological world. On the one hand, these natural shapeshifters can transform themselves into virtually any type of cell in the body. In that regard, they hold the promise of being ...

Researchers at University of Toronto's Medicine By Design have engineered a new platform to study the earliest stages of human development in the lab, pulling back the curtain on key biological processes that until now have ...

Stem cells. Few research discoveries hold as much promise of single-handedly expanding medical treatment options as they do. Miraculously able to act as transformers—either re-creating or morphing into a variety of cell ...

Hundreds of South Korean scientists expressed outrage Wednesday after a controversial figure accused of covering up a notorious stem cell research fraud was appointed as the country's top technology official.

Stem cell

Stem cells are cells found in most, if not all, multi-cellular organisms. They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Research in the stem cell field grew out of findings by Canadian scientists Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till in the 1960s. The two broad types of mammalian stem cells are: embryonic stem cells that are isolated from the inner cell mass of blastocysts, and adult stem cells that are found in adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing specialized cells, but also maintain the normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin or intestinal tissues.

Stem cells can now be grown and transformed into specialized cells with characteristics consistent with cells of various tissues such as muscles or nerves through cell culture. Highly plastic adult stem cells from a variety of sources, including umbilical cord blood and bone marrow, are routinely used in medical therapies. Embryonic cell lines and autologous embryonic stem cells generated through therapeutic cloning have also been proposed as promising candidates for future therapies.